Expanding without war - a guide to setting up a superpower

[Magister_Mortis]

Note: This strategy is best used on continental/pangea maps

This strategy is very simple and it sets you up a for a massive military later on in the game. The trick to it is avoiding war at all costs until the industrial or modern eras. At the beginning of the game you will want to place your capital near freshwater, or food (cattle, wheat, etc.)

Now that your main city has been set up, build a warrior and queue up several settlers, two or three should be sufficient for now. While this is taking place use your worker to develop your infrastructure preferablly place irrigation and roads around your city, you can change the irrigation to mines later on but for right now irrigation is required.

As soon as your settlers are complete, build cities near your border, not to close as to cramp production but close enough so you can cram as many cities in the availiable space. You may also want to create little groups of cities away from the core of your empire as to control resources and luxuries, or to hinder the expansion of your enemies. Once these cities are complete continue this cycle over and over until you have expanded as far as possible.

Note: Expand into areas that may benefit you later on, tundra and deserts are examples of places that may come in handy when you need strategic resources. Also you may want to construct an extra warrior to escort your settlers.

Now that your continueing this cycle in places other than your empires core cities, your capital and the first few cities you built, you may want to start developing them. Make a couple workers and start developing the area around your cities, linking them together or linking with strategic resources/luxuries. While your workers are doing their thing, develop your cities defenses (unit-wise). Once you feel your cities are aquedately protected construct buildings as your econemy permits.

When it comes to technology you may want to get map-making early so you can expand to remote areas: alphabet, pottery, and writing would be the technologies required for this. However, feel free to research your technologies in the order you wish.

Now we must plan how you will want to win this game, I will list the various victory conditions and provide the strategies you may want to employ to reach victory.

Spaceship to Alpha Centauri

Government types best suited for this plan - Republic, Democracy

When it comes to this plan invest more money in technology and set up a vast technological base. Buy off opponents and try to keep them at war with each other. Maintain a offensive force along with you defensive force, as to eliminate potential threats.
Continue expanding at a medium pace, and aquire as many strategic resources as you can. You will need them later on.

Domination/Conquest/Histograph

Government types best suited for this plan - Despotism, Monarchy, Communism

In this plan you will want to expand at a maximum pace. Keep your rivals at war while developing your military. Try to get and stay ahead of them technologically. Try to fight wars with one person at a time, as to allow for maximum concentration of military force. Also take out the bigger nations first, they will become a threat later on.

Diplomatic/Cultural/Histograph

Government types best suited for this plan - Republic, Democracy

In this you want to expand and develop rapidly. Don't focus your production on economic structures, but more on cultural structures at first. Try to keep everybody happy with you and build as many wonders as possible. Increase your luxury level inside your country to keep everybody as happy as you can.

Thank you for reading my article, I hope it has been informative. If you want to send me your comments e-mail me at ant@columbus.rr.com, or post them here.

Note: This was written using Civ 3 Play the World, all of it translates well except for a few changes like victory conditions and government types.

 

[wilbill]

Now that your main city has been set up, build a warrior and queue up several settlers, two or three should be sufficient for now.

You'll likely need a granary to produce those settlers fast enough. Without it you probably will end up waiting for your city to catch up to the two population points the last settler cost. A granary makes a much more efficient settler factory.

place irrigation and roads around your city, you can change the irrigation to mines later on but for right now irrigation is required.

Irrigating grassland accomplishes nothing under despotism, so that wouldn't be a very good use of the worker. You should mine non-bonus grassland under despotism, then irrigate over it when you need the food under a more productive government.

 

[Magister_Mortis]

While you can build a granary, it is not recommended at the beginning. In my personal findings, waiting for your city to catch up when in a grassland area is much faster than trying to build a granary. Not building a granary has two advantages, first the one previously mentioned, and two it saves money for tight situations.
Preventing an attack, buying technology, etc... Besides some civs don't start with pottery and you'd end up waiting for the discovery before you could expand. However later on this useful, but only when you can afford it.

You do have a point irrigating is pointless in those areas. I did not check all my facts when writing this. I apologize, if there is anything else please inform me.

 

[wilbill]

Well, I build a granary with shields, not money, so that's not an issue. If I don't start with pottery I do my best to have my scouts (plural - warriors built before I even think about the first settler) find other civs first and trade for it asap. Most of the time you can do that even if you have to trade two techs for it.
I think it's much more efficient to take a few turns building the granary than it is to let a city sit idle, growing itself back to a level when it can complete a settler. If I read you correctly that would happen every time one of the settlers you queued up was finished. With a granary and enough food, you can produce a settler every couple of turns without wasting food or shields. You simply can't afford to waste all those turns without producing anything (and wasting shields) early in the game.

 

[ducki]

A build order of Warrior-Warrior(or Worker)-Granary-Settler only sets you back by 7 or 8 turns and you make those up after the 2nd or 3rd settler and every settler thereafter comes twice as fast. nbarclay did a turn-by-turn analysis somewhere. If you have 5spt and/or forests to chop, you can claim more territory by starting a _little_ bit later this way, and you can always change your mind up to the point that a first settler would complete without losing anything other than research put into Pottery.

Granted, this assumes a couple of bonus grassland and hopefully a forest to chop, but I have found I can expand much faster and farther by building a granary before a settler in _most_ situations the Map Generator throws at me.

That's just my opinion.